Pope peace plea

Pope Fran­cis is de­cry­ing wors­en­ing vi­o­lence amid the al­ready “des­per­ate” hu­man­i­tar­ian sit­u­a­tion in Syria, par­tic­u­larly in the north­ern city of Aleppo. Dur­ing his tra­di­tional Sun­day re­marks to the faith­ful in St Peter’s Square, Fran­cis re­ferred to last week’s at­tack on an Aleppo hospi­tal. He laments that a “spi­ral of vi­o­lence” is “reap­ing in­no­cent vic­tims, even among chil­dren, the sick and those who with great sac­ri­fice are com­mit­ted to help­ing their neigh­bours”. Med­i­cal per­son­nel were re­ported to be among the vic­tims of that at­tack. Fran­cis says he is “ex­hort­ing all sides in­volved in the con­flict to re­spect the ces­sa­tion of hos­til­i­ties and re­in­force on­go­ing di­a­logue”, which he says is the only path that leads to peace.